Trails, Driveways & Right-of-Ways
Trail, driveway and right-of-way clearing in New Brunswick
Access into the back of your land. ATV and walking trails, driveways, camp roads, woodlot access and utility corridors — cut to width, left ridable, no brush pile at either end.
Access
Most people only use a fraction of the land they own
It's a common story around here. Forty acres on paper, and you've walked maybe five of them, because past the treeline there's no way in. The back of the property might as well belong to someone else.
A cleared corridor changes that completely, and it's one of the cheapest improvements you can make to a rural property. Linear work is efficient — the machine moves forward in a straight line instead of grinding back and forth over an area — so a trail costs a fraction of what clearing the equivalent square footage in a field would.
An excavator is particularly well suited to it. The boom reaches ahead and to the sides, cutting the corridor from ground the machine has already worked, so we're not driving into unknown soft ground to find out how soft it is.
Corridor work
What we cut
ATV & UTV trails
Recreational trails through your own woodlot, cut to a width that suits your machine, with overhead clearance so it doesn't close in on you within two seasons.
Walking & hiking trails
Narrower, quieter corridors for walking the property, hunting access, or a loop through the woods behind the house.
Driveways
Clearing the corridor for a new driveway — wide enough for ditching, snow storage and delivery trucks, not just wide enough for a car.
Camp & woodlot roads
Access into the back of a property for a camp, a cabin, or getting equipment to a woodlot. Often the hardest part of the whole project.
Right-of-ways & easements
Utility corridors, power line right-of-ways, pipeline easements and private road allowances kept clear of encroaching growth.
Property lines & firebreaks
Cutting a corridor along a surveyed boundary so you can find your own lines, and pushing fuel load back off buildings.
Get it right the first time
Four things to settle before we cut
Width — and be generous
Everyone underestimates. 6–8 ft for a quad trail, 10–12 ft for a side-by-side, about 20 ft of cleared corridor for a 12 ft driveway. Widening later means mobilizing a machine again for a small job.
Where the water goes
The route matters more than the surface. A trail that runs along a contour drains; a trail that runs straight down a slope becomes a gully in one spring. We'll walk the line with you and route around the wet ground rather than through it.
Watercourse crossings
Within 30 metres of a brook or wetland you need a provincial Watercourse and Wetland Alteration Permit before anything happens. We'll identify crossings at the quote so it doesn't become a problem mid-job.
What the corridor has to carry
An ATV trail can ride on mulch. A driveway that has to take a concrete truck in April needs ditching, culverts and gravel. Different scope, different price — and we'll tell you which one you actually need.
Mulch is a surface, not a road base
Two to four inches of chip makes a good trail and a fine seasonal lane. It does not make a road that carries loaded trucks through a New Brunswick spring. Where you need a real road, mulching clears the corridor and excavation builds the base. We do both, and we'll be straight with you about where the line falls.
Straight answers
Trail & driveway clearing questions
How wide should an ATV or UTV trail be?
For a single-track ATV trail, 6 to 8 feet of cleared width is comfortable. For a side-by-side, you want 10 to 12 feet minimum, and more on corners — a UTV needs room to swing that a quad doesn't.
Clear the overhead too. Eight feet of vertical clearance keeps branches off helmets and windshields, and stops the trail closing in from above within two seasons.
How wide does a driveway need to be cleared?
Wider than the driveway itself. A 12-foot driveway needs about 20 feet of cleared corridor to leave room for ditching on both sides, snow storage in winter, and enough daylight that the surface actually dries out.
Clearing tight to the driving surface is the classic false economy: it holds water, it holds ice, the plow has nowhere to put snow, and you'll be back to widen it within a few years.
Can you clear a trail without ruining it with ruts?
That's the case for using an excavator. The boom reaches ahead so the machine can cut a corridor while staying on ground it has already worked, or on the firm side of a soft spot.
The mulch left behind also helps: a few inches of chip on a trail is a surprisingly good running surface that sheds water and keeps the base from turning to soup.
Do you clear right-of-ways and easements?
Yes — utility corridors, power line right-of-ways, pipeline easements, private road allowances and access easements. Mulching is the standard method for vegetation management on right-of-ways because the material stays on site and there's no haul-off from a linear corridor.
For work on someone else's easement, you'll need written authorization from the holder before we start.
Can you clear a road into the back of my land?
This is one of our most common jobs. A camp road, logging road, woodlot access or lane into a back field — mulched to width, with the mulch mat left as an initial surface.
If it needs to carry a truck, it also needs ditching, culverts at the wet crossings and gravel, which is excavation work. We'll tell you at the quote which parts of the route need it rather than pretending mulch alone makes a road.
What about crossing a brook or a wet area?
Stop before you do anything. In New Brunswick, any alteration within 30 metres of a watercourse or wetland requires a Watercourse and Wetland Alteration Permit, and a trail crossing definitely qualifies. Culvert size and installation are regulated.
We'll route around water where it's possible, and where a crossing is unavoidable we'll flag it at the quote so you can get the permit sorted before the machine is booked.
Related services
Free, no-obligation
Open up the back of your property
Trails, driveways, camp roads and right-of-ways cleared across southeastern New Brunswick. Free on-site quote.